This year's CD was culled from 186 submissions. It includes 11 previously unreleased songs. Only Patterson Hood has ever appeared on a AthFest CD in the past. This year's CD is packaged in an eco-friendly recycled paper and plastic digipak."

"Noel MurrayMaybe it’s because I’ve been ridicu-busy lately, but the song I keep coming back to is Drive-By Truckers’ “The Living Bubba,” which Patterson Hood wrote in 1996 from the point of view of his country-rock acquaintance Gregory Dean Smalley, who’d recently died of AIDS. The song is simple and powerful, describing the effects of the disease and Smalley’s efforts to overcome them by playing as many gigs as he could. “I can’t die now / ‘Cause I got another show to do,” Hood sings over and over on Smalley’s behalf, and every time he does I feel my own little surge of strength. (For more on the song, read Hood’s recollections of its origins in Paste.)"

"I missed out on Alabama Chanin’s New York Fashion Week presentation at the Firehouse in late February, but all of NY’s fashion birds were tweeting in unison that this was one of the loveliest and most refreshing events of the week. Chanin’s Fall/Winter 2009 Collection was inspired by what the designer and her team referred to as “The Songbirds,” aka amazing women singing about real life issues to help soothe the scratches and bumps that life often throws our way - Emmlyou Harris, Patty Griffin, Allison Moorer, Abigail Washburn, Allison Krauss, The Be Good Tanyas, Elizabeth Cook, Shonna Tucker of The Drive-By Truckers and many, many others. The Songbirds fashion week presentation was totally unpretentious, and a sign perhaps, of just how much we have to learn about persistence and good honest sweat during hard times."

This isn’t so much an indepth review of the CD (alright then – here’s the review: It’s good. Go buy it. You don’t really need me to tell you that, do you?) as it is a discussion of dem Gourds and how they make people happy"

"Here's my list of my favorite concert flubs. One important note: I left off Jay Z playing Oasis' 'Wonderwall' at 2008's Glastonbury Festival with a guitar hanging from his neck as a prop. It was insanely lame and deserves to be on some kind of list, but I know it wasn't technically a mistake. Just poor judgment."

_______

My first bit of practice with some new film editing toys. Kinda cheesy, but good for learning.